Selective Disservice

Sunday’s homage to Milton Friedman occasioned a few angry emails from friends. Those to the left of me claimed that Mr. Friedman was a charlatan or worse; those to the right questioned my credentials as a conservative (which I make no claims to be) and chided me for gently suggesting that Mr. Friedman’s ideas have run out of gas. If I were interested in turning THE DIVAGATOR into yet another lib/con food fight, I suppose I would post those comments and then defend myself accordingly, but I have no intention of hosting Crossfire.

Instead of taking up those provocations one by one, I’d rather use another of Mr. Friedman’s pet issues—conscription—to demonstrate how the old liberal-v.-conservative take on things is often not very helpful in making sense of policy questions. Mr. Friedman was instrumental during the early 1970s in leading the movement to end military conscription, which was abandoned by the Nixon administration in 1973. Mr. Friedman’s opposition to the draft was not founded upon libertarianism (at least, not of the familiar kind), but rather his dislike of government economic controls. In short, Friedman believed that the draft siphoned off—willy-nilly—talent that could be put to more productive use elsewhere in the US economy. The draft created a huge drag on productivity, and by ending it, we could unleash that latent productivity by allowing the market access to individuals who would otherwise by employed by the US government, often performing low-value tasks.

The argument is classic Friedman, and per the usual, it is correct, but correct only from a strictly economic point of view. To see how Friedman’s economics regarding the draft might work in the real world —particularly if conscription is viewed within the broader category of military mobilization—one need look no farther than the recent war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Israeli economy is small enough and advanced enough to see in fairly clear terms how military mobilization saps a national economy of its vitality. Even before the war kicked off, Strategic Forecasting, Inc. had warned back in July,

While Israel’s standing military is composed mainly of volunteers, the country maintains full conscription. That means that people from all walks of life are putting on uniforms. Expect business disruptions due to personnel shortages throughout the country, particularly in the north.

By August, the costs of building and maintaining a force structure sufficient to make war against Hezbollah was already being felt, as Israeli Finance Minister Avraham Hirchson claimed that the war had cost Israel $1.6 billion, almost three percent of the country’s 2006 budget. That $1.6 billion figure, of course, does not include the hidden costs of mobilization, costs which are at the heart of Friedman’s main argument. One could extrapolate those costs—albeit in a highly unscientific manner—by looking at Israel’s GDP growth for 2006, which is expected to register about 4.5%, or 1% lower than the previous year. Earlier this year, the BBC reported that Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer estimated a loss of roughly 1% due to the war, which brings the hidden costs to around $1.3 billion. I should qualify that figure, because obviously not all of the hidden costs are due directly to conscription. For example, over the course of the war’s first month, Israel reported a 20% dip in tourism. But clearly, such costs due to business disruption and personnel shortages are expected to be significant…why else would the accounting firms be marketing their services in this regard?

All in all, it makes perfect sense that having potential systems analysts, software engineers, and corporate lawyers locked into crummy government jobs is not the best way to grow the national economy, but while economics is an important factor to consider in policy making, perhaps it shouldn’t be the only factor.

Obviously, whereas the draft is concerned, the first consideration is one of national defense, and to be sure, there were many folks back in the 1970s who argued vehemently that a volunteer army would be unable to meet the country’s needs. From a purely strategic point of view, many of the arguments of this type have been proven wrong. The advent of more sophisticated weapons technologies, the end of the Cold War, and various other factors have eased the USA’s transition to the All-Volunteer Force.

As an aside—and perhaps an argument for a different day—it is not surprising that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought to ‘revolutionize’ the armed forces by moving to smarter, lighter fighting forces. It is a case of military strategy following the exigencies of politics; Rumsfeld could see that we simply don’t have the troops to throw fully maintained armies far and wide across the globe. I disagree with Rumsfeld for a number of reasons, but suffice it to say that his ideas regarding the US force structure, I think, are a very natural consequence of the post-conscription era, not without merit entirely, but then again, not really effective either.

But there other concerns, not often given much relevance thirty years ago, that, today, are beginning to find some traction in the ongoing conversation concerning the draft, and oddly, because of these concerns, support for re-instituting the draft has brought together some odd bedfellows. Take my dad—he’s old school, ex-Marine, about as reactionary as one can get, a Southern white male who came of age during the Civil Rights era and harbors all the grudges one would associate with that place and time. Then think of Charlie Rangel, Harlem-born and bred, a career Democrat machine politician, bluer than Jimmy Carter’s eyes. They wouldn’t likely agree on much, but they agree on bringing back the draft, albeit for quite different reasons.

Of these newer concerns that did not receive much attention all those years ago, the most important—in my opinion, anyway—is the demographic make-up of the armed forces. Recently, I came across an interesting essay from Columbia University’s Institute from Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) that posed a question worth asking:

Who serves in the military forces of the United States? Who should serve? In recent years, these questions have been the subject of much scrutiny and debate. With the advent of the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) in 1973, the United States lost the mechanism by which a large number of citizens were recruited into military service. The end of the draft also meant that there was no guarantee that the American military would reflect, either demographically or ideologically, the society it served.

Back in the 1970s, the draft argument was dominated by a few axe-grinders who saw the draft through the single lens of their particular political persuasion. The national defense establishment was concerned about security and force structure; the libertarians were concerned about the civil-rights implications of mandatory conscription; economists like Milton Friedman were concerned about the loss of productivity inherent in conscripting highly talented individuals. There were even those who claimed the draft was unfair because people of affluence could simply evade the draft—or at the very least, avoid combat—thanks to money and family connections, which certainly was true to an extent, viz. George Bush, but of course, for every George Bush, there was a John Kerry, a ‘fortunate son’ who served despite the silver spoon in his mouth.

No one—at least, no one very loudly—put much thought into the long-term demographic changes that an all-volunteer army would entail, and the ISERP article excerpted above helps to remind us all that, viewing policy problems reductively, i.e. through the single lens of one discipline or one set of pet concerns, will inevitably create troublesome, unintended consequences. Sometimes the cure is as bad as the disease.

You may be wondering at this point, “Surely, he’s not suggesting we bring back the draft?” I may post more thoughts on that topic in the future, but the short answer is that I would like to see the question put on the table in a serious way, which it has not been for a generation.

The draft question is tantalizingly complex and defies the neat, liberal-vs.-conservative meat-grinder. As I mentioned above, there are several members of the Black Congressional Caucus who feel the all-volunteer army is less volunteer than it looks. They claim that recruiters prey upon low-income youths, and that the whole system is rigged (oddly, this was the same argument that the draft’s opponents used 35 years ago). In a slightly more qualified form, however, I accept their argument. There is a mountain of evidence demonstrating that ‘volunteerism’ seems to fall on particular demographic groups. Yes, blacks and Hispanics figure prominently, but let’s not forget that the enlistment rates among southerners is also out of whack with the general population. Southerners make themselves feel better by thinking this is due to the martial spirit of the South, but I would suggest it has more to do with the poverty and desperation of its young male population.

Many conservatives might not care for the premises of this argument, but they’ll cheer the results, especially those who have no use for Mr. Rumsfeld’s leaner, meaner fighting machine, and thus, it is in this way that liberal black congressmen and old-school conservatives have come to break bread over the draft issue.

One might be tempted to assert here, “I don’t still don’t see what the so-called demographic problem is.” In a recent essay published on Stratfor.com, George Friedman (no relation to Milton, at least, so far as I know) asks much the same question,

The makeup of the U.S. Army is skewed toward the middle and lower-middle class. But then, so are many professions. Few children of the wealthy get jobs in the Social Security Administration or become professional boxers. The fact that the Army does not reflect the full social spectrum of the country doesn’t mean very much. Hardly anything reflects that well.

Friedman’s essay is excellent and should be read, not least because what I’ve chosen to quote is a little misleading in terms of his overall argument. But this excerpt does indicate a certain lack of concern with the demographics of the Army, especially as those demographics relate to social justice.

I should say here that my main concern over demographics is not so much rooted in social justice either, although I am mindful of it. But Friedman’s claim—“…that the Army does not reflect the full social spectrum of the country doesn’t mean very much”—is a dangerously short-sighted way of looking at things. Perhaps not today, perhaps not tomorrow, but is so fantastical to imagine an America at strife with itself, divided by ideology; is it so hard to imagine that an army drawn too heavily from one strata or group might be tempted to intercede on behalf of one side in a political squabble? My concerns here are of the 50-year variety, not the likelihood of what happens next week or next year, and I do think it is dangerous to for the armed forces to identify too heavily with one group.

The logical end of such a concern needn’t be conscription, and George Friedman supplies some excellent reasons why a 20th-century-style draft would be disastrous for the US. But the concerns persist none the less, requiring perhaps a more creative way of looking at the issue, a level of creativity you won’t likely find on Crossfire or in Milton Friedman’s economic reductionism.